it wasn't because moderator jim lehrer worked for pbs since 1973. romney messed with the most popular bird in america, and twitter responded. big bird peaked at 17,000 tweets per minute and the #savesesamestreet became the top trending topic. >> i don't understand. you know, everything was just fine. why does it have to be this way? give me one good reason. >> well, that's the problem, pbs doesn't receive any direct money from the government. the government funds the corporation for public broadcasting, a profit -- a private non-profit corporation that distributes the subsidy to local pbs stations. in 2012, cpb was given $444.1 million. let's see. what is that? that's .012% of the federal budget. last year, pbs received just 5% of cpb's total appropriation? so in terms of having an impact on the nation's debt, folks, we're talking about a drop in the bucket, but to many americans mitt romney is talking about cutting an institution. pbs calls itself america's biggest classroom for a reason. it offers educational programming to kids across america who